The Wayne State University School of Medicine Medical Alumni Association has announced the 2025 winners of the Recent Alumni Award, the Lawrence M. Weiner Award and the Distinguished Alumni Award, who will be recognized during the annual Medical Alumni Reunion Weekend, April 25-27, in Detroit.
Geoffrey Potts, M.D., a 2011 graduate of the Wayne State University School of Medicine who practices in Dearborn and Troy, will receive the Recent Alumni Award. The award is presented to an individual who received a medical degree from the Wayne State University School of Medicine within the last 15 years and has demonstrated outstanding professional achievement, community contributions or service to the School of Medicine.
Since 2017, Dr. Potts has served as a member of the Department of Dermatology faculty as a clinician educator, and since 2019 as associate residency program director. A member of the Arnold P. Gold Humanism Honor Society since 2024, Dr. Potts chairs the School of Medicine Clinical Affairs Committee, and also serves on the Wayne Health Retirement Committee and the Wayne Health Revenue Cycle Committee.
Dr. Potts conducts clinical research trials, has a combined rheumatology-dermatology clinic and has a special interest in complex medical dermatology and hyperhidrosis.
He was awarded the WSU Dermatology Residency Core Faculty of the Year Award in 2020, 2023 and 2024. He received the WSU School of Medicine College Teaching Award in 2021 and the Dermatology Interest Group Association Faculty Mentor Award in 2022.
Dr. Potts received his bachelor’s degree from Oakland University in 2007, and after graduating from the WSU School of Medicine completed an Internal Medicine internship at St. John Hospital, a dermatology research fellowship at St. Louis University and in 2017 a Dermatology residency at the School of Medicine.
This year’s Distinguished Alumni Award will go to Rana Awdish, M.D., FACP, FCCP, a 2002 graduate of the School of Medicine. The award is presented annually to an individual who received a medical degree from the WSU School of Medicine and who has made outstanding contributions to humanitarian causes, whose contributions to the health field in the broader sense is outstanding and for service to the School of Medicine.
Dr. Awdish is the author of “In Shock,” a bestselling memoir based on her own critical illness.
A pulmonary and critical care physician, she serves as the director of the Pulmonary Hypertension Program at Henry Ford Hospital. She also serves as medical director of Care Experience for Heny Ford Health, where she has integrated compassionate communication strategies and Narrative Medicine practice into the curriculum. She is a professor of Internal Medicine at both the Michigan State University College of Human Medicine and the WSU School of Medicine.
Dr. Awdish received the Schwartz Center’s National Compassionate Caregiver of the Year Award in 2017. She was named Physician of the Year by Press Ganey in 2017 for her work on improving communication and received the Critical Care Teaching Award in 2016. She has been inducted into the Alpha Omega Alpha medical honor society and the Gold Humanism Honor Society.
In 2020, the podcast “This American Life” documented the COVID-19 pandemic in Detroit, using Dr. Awdish's audio diary of Henry Ford Hospital employees' experience during that time. She was named a Healthcare Hero by U.S. News and World Report in 2020 for her work during the pandemic.
Her narrative non-fiction essays have been published in The Examined Life Journal, Intima, CHEST and The New England Journal of Medicine. She has written editorials for The Harvard Business Review, Annals of Internal Medicine, The Washington Post and The Detroit Free Press. Her essay, “The Shape of the Shore,” was awarded a Sydney by The New York Times and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her book has been translated into multiple languages and is included in medical school and post-graduate curricula throughout the United States and the United Kingdom.
After attending the WSU School of Medicine, Dr. Awdish completed her training at Mount Sinai Beth Israel in New York. She received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan. She is board certified in Internal Medicine, and Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine.
Robert Dunne, M.D., FACEP, FAEMS, a professor of Emergency Medicine at Wayne State University, will receive the Lawrence M. Weiner Award, which honors outstanding contributions made to the School of Medicine by individuals who are not medical degree alumni. Nominees may have earned a doctoral degree or completed their residency or fellowship training at WSU, or may be a faculty member who completed undergraduate medical education at an institution other than WSU. The award is based on exceptional performance in teaching, research and/or administrative duties.
Dr. Dunne directs the School of Medicine’s pre-hospital programming, including Emergency Medical Services, Preparedness, EMS Research and more. He is the program director of the WSU EMS fellowship.
The medical director of the Detroit East Medical Control Authority, Detroit 911 and the City of Detroit Fire Department, Dr. Dunne lectures extensively on emergency medical services, preparedness and topics in trauma and emergency medicine. He is subspecialty board certified in EMS by the American Board of Medical Specialties and has been involved in multiple EMS research projects, including exception from informed consent research trials, serving on the steering committee of the Public Access Defibrillation Trial. He is an investigator for the RES-Q trial, the RAMPART trial, the Poly Heme Trial and other local and national trials.
Dr. Dunne manages the Detroit agency data of the Cardiac Arrest Registry to Enhance Survival and the Detroit EMS clinical data. He also serves as the conduit for EMS and hospital data relating to patients treated in the prehospital environment. He has led community outreach and coordinated efforts to help Detroit earn a Heart Safe City designation.
He serves on the State of Michigan Emergency Medical Services Coordinating Committee and is past president of Michigan’s American College of Emergency Physicians chapter. He chairs the Michigan College of Emergency Physicians EMS Committee.
Dr. Dunne has led community responder efforts to teach residents how to respond to cardiac arrests, opioid overdose and traumatic injury. He provides medical direction for the opioid response initiatives for the City of Detroit and established the medication-assisted treatments program at Ascension St. John Hospital.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Dunne took on many leadership roles across the region. His EMS role expanded to include all public safety and serving as a medical advisor to the city. He served as interim medical director for the Detroit Health Department.
He graduated from the University of Michigan’s Inteflex program (a combined bachelor’s degree/M.D. program) and completed Emergency Medicine residency training at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, where he was chief resident.
Medical Alumni Reunion Weekend begins April 25 with a casual reception at the Corner Ballpark, followed the next two days by an array of events, including Continuing Medical Education sessions, tours of the School of Medicine, class receptions, dinner, the awards ceremony, a bus tour of Detroit and a Detroit Tigers game.
For more information about the event, visit https://alumni.med.wayne.edu/reunion-registration